Tin Soldiers
by slyprentice
Summary: John didn't remember the day they first met.


**Title: **Tin Soldiers**  
Author:** Prentice  
**Rating**: Everyone  
**Fandom**: BBC Sherlock  
**Pairing**: None (pre-John/Sherlock)  
**Category**: Alternate Universe, Fluff, Friendship  
**Notes**: _I have absolutely zero knowledge of what London playgrounds are like or if they'd even have something like a sandbox on one so if you're a Londoner and say 'no, that's not right!' when you read this then...I think you're really missing the point. ;) _

* * *

John didn't remember the day they first met.

Sherlock did – of course he did, the man was infuriating in that way – but he knew it was on a playground somewhere in London. He'd been making a sand fort, or so he'd been informed, with tinny soldiers lined up in the haphazard way children think they should be and hadn't looked up when a shadow fell over him. Thin and waif-like it had blocked out the sun and told him, rather imperiously as far as John can tell, that his fort was 'abysmal' and that his soldiers were going to die before they even got out of the trenches.

'Structurally unsound' was the way Sherlock described it. As if roughly pushed up mounds of sand in a sandbox somewhere in London near the flat-share he and his mum and Harry had been living in since their father skipped out on them could be anything other than completely unstable. Even so, Sherlock had, apparently, not cared in the slightest and settled into the grit with him, pushing and patting the list rise of sand into something with more shape.

"Not to fear, Watson! We'll make it better," Sherlock had said, smug satisfaction mixing with fond reassurance when John had, quite rightly, looked up at him curiously, wondering how this boy, this little slip of a thing, had known his name. "Once we shore up the battlements and arrange the soldiers properly, everything will be better. You'll see."

And it had been. John's sure of it, even if he can't remember it. Not clearly, anyway.

Not like he could remember Sherlock's birthday party, which he'd been bullied into going to by his mum who had, somehow, gotten the idea into her head that he and Sherlock were mates. Best mates, even. Even in spite of their age difference.

Which, really, wasn't that considerable but it had felt like it at the time. John _wasn't_ a baby, thank you very much; not like Sherlock was. Or should have been, if he'd have acted his age once in a while, but hadn't, ever, not once.

Anyhow, though, John could remember it. Sherlock's birthday party. That first one he went to.

Tucked up into his most comfortable jumper – the oatmeal colored one that his Nan had brought him on _his_ last birthday – he'd brought a present he'd picked out all by himself. Not tinny soldiers like he would have wanted but a chemist set that the younger boy had used to catch the drapery on fire in his bedroom; the flash-bang of the explosion spectacular and something that John wasn't entirely sure wasn't done just to impress him. Which it rather had, truth be told. He hadn't realized those miniature chemist sets were the real thing – he would have gotten one for himself if he'd known.

It'd been Mycroft who'd put out the flames from the explosion, smothering them with both of Sherlock's favorite pillows, and it had only occurred to John then, with the room smelling of smoke and smoldering fabric, that there weren't any other children at the party.

Was it a party if he was the only one invited? _Had_ he been the only one invited? John didn't know, even now, but he hadn't minded at the time. Still didn't mind, really.

Having all of Sherlock Holmes' undivided attention was an entirely too heady experience, no matter what their respective ages were. It's enough of one that John could remember basking in even way back then, though he hadn't been entirely sure why he had. He'd just done it – unquestioningly, happily – and when it'd finally been time to go he could remember feeling strangely adrift, like someone had cut off a part of him he hadn't realized he'd needed until just then.

Maybe Sherlock, who'd stared after John with dark eyes that were far too serious for a boy his age, and who'd made John's stomach ache and his skin feel hot. Like he'd wanted to cry but couldn't because big boys didn't do that sort of thing. Even if they wanted to.

"Don't you worry, Johnny," his mum had said on the car ride home, indulgent and charmed by his reluctance to leave his friend's side. "You'll see him again soon. I'm sure of it."

But John hadn't, at least not soon enough, and took to wearing his jumper – which, for a time, had smelled faintly of smoke and Sherlock – to bed every night. A pair of tinny soldiers tucked securely beneath his pillow. Not that he'd ever tell Sherlock that.

Even if, sometimes, the other man had a look in his eyes that reminded John of the little boy who'd blocked out all his sunlight and built him a better fort in the middle of a London playground.

**END (for now)**


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